The State of NoSQL: Trends & Tradeoffs

Cynthia Dunlop's blog post from May 2023 discusses the evolving landscape of NoSQL databases, highlighting trends and tradeoffs associated with their adoption, especially in contrast to SQL and NewSQL databases. The discussion, featuring insights from ScyllaDB's Tzach Livyatan and TDWI's James Kobielus, emphasizes the increasing demand for wide column NoSQL databases like Cassandra and Bigtable due to their ability to handle massive amounts of data generated by global, low-latency applications in sectors such as gaming, IoT, and media streaming. The tradeoffs of NoSQL include variations in data distribution, transaction support, and latency, which differ across the many types of NoSQL databases. The article also explores how NewSQL databases attempt to merge the benefits of both SQL and NoSQL, albeit with some latency costs, and considers the future role of Kubernetes in database orchestration, noting the challenges and potential solutions for maintaining performance in a cloud-native environment.